Writing Right with Dmitri: Storytelling
Created | Updated May 5, 2019
Writing Right with Dmitri: Storytelling
Children, listen up. The purpose of writing is to tell a story.
Yeah, I know: you think the purpose is to persuade, cajole, convince. To share your wisdom and insight. To wax rhapsodical about landscape, to list the name of every bird you've ever heard of in order to convince the world of your superior in-tune-ness with Nature, to project the image of Manliness, to boldly go where no fantasy writer has gone before…
Yadda yadda.
Before you can sneak any of that in, you've got to interest an audience. You have to tell a story.
And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding. But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Matthew 22:1-10 (NKJV)
Do you have the slightest idea what Jesus was going on about? Probably not. (I have my own thoughts on the matter, see me after class.) But before he could get that crowd of 1st-century fishermen, farmers, small tradespeople, and workmen to listen, he had to tell them a story. He must have been a storytelling superstar, that guy from Galilee. He pulled in huge crowds, even when he didn't provide refreshments.
In her memoir My Own Two Feet, children's author Beverly Cleary tells about her first job as a children's librarian. The most terrifying part of the job, to her, was Storytime. A friend helped her by reading stories aloud to her, which she retold to him. She memorised dozens of folktales. She hated telling them in library class, to bored and ironic-looking classmates. But when she told them to children, and saw how eager they were to hear the stories, she forgot all about being nervous and enjoyed it as much as they did. Later, she wrote her own stories with episodes from the lives of those children. She's sold 91 million copies, and been translated into other languages.
Storytelling has power. Stories help us visualise. They help us remember. They convey meaning and give us insight. Even Einstein used stories: his story about the cows, the electric fence, and relativity is legendary.
Say what you want to say. Be erudite, provocative, introspective, amusing. But remember: it starts with a story.
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